Cy-Fair ISD board approves lowering property tax rate for 2019-20

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Chief Financial Officer Karen Smith said at the Sept. 5 board work session the owner of a home valued at $200,000 would save about $95 on their annual property tax bill.

The maintenance and operations rate, which funds the district’s day-to-day operations, is $0.97—down from $1.04. The interest and sinking or debt service rate remained unchanged at $0.40.

CFISD offers an optional homestead exemption of 20% of the appraised value plus $25,000, which Smith said results in a multimillion dollar revenue loss each year.

“Basically, the amount of revenue the district loses by granting these exemptions at $1.37 tax rate is just shy of $79 million,” she said.

The tax rate decrease is a result of House Bill 3, which passed in the 86th Texas Legislature earlier this year.

Through this bill, lawmakers invested $5.1 billion to help school districts across the state lower their tax rates by an average of $0.08 in 2020 and $0.13 in 2021. To make up for the decrease in local revenue, legislators are also increasing the state’s share of funding from 38% to an average of 45% for the biennium.

CFISD officials have projected about 54.3% of their revenue sources will be from local taxes and 43.5% will be from the state in 2019-20. The district adopted a $992.3 million budget in June.

Danica joined Community Impact Newspaper as a Cy-Fair reporter in May 2016 after graduating with a journalism degree from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. She became editor of the Cy-Fair edition in March 2020 and continues to cover education, local government, business, demographic trends, real estate development and nonprofits.

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